Al Hijarah (missile)

The al-Hijarah missile was an Iraqi liquid propelled inertial short-range ballistic missile. It was also a Scud missile and considered an upgrade of the al-Hussein missile equipped with chemical warheads.^[1] The al-Hijarah missile was developed by 1990,^[2] according to unconfirmed information it was meant to be used against people and oil wells, supposedly releasing poison gas clouds, as well as igniting oil wells; it was first used in the 1990-1991 Gulf War.^[1] One al-Hijarah missile was confirmed to have been fired at Israel during the Gulf War, which landed near Dimona, and was found to have a concrete filled warhead.^[1]

The al-Hijarah missile warhead was probably filled with chemical weapons and biological weapons possessed by Iraq at that time like anthrax, botulinum toxin, aflatoxin, sarin, cyclosarin and VX nerve agent.^[4] The al-Hijarah missile being a version of the al Hussein also suffered from flight instability and improper guidance.^[3] Iraq itself at that time was almost fully indigenous when it came to ballistic missile components and only lacked the ability to locally manufacture Gyroscopes.^[1]